RicoS321

This is the worst team I've seen play at pittodrie this season. This is relegation material. Really, really bad. McKenzie been horrendous. But everyone terrible.

It is not the equivalent. Not even in the same stratosphere. Ferguson would have to take a 80% pay cut. We matched Nicholas' wages as that's what we did back then because players weren't paid 63 mortgages a week. If Cormack has spent one minute considering these guys, he's not fit to be chairman.

You can't just say "if you don't ask", that's just stupid. A total cop out. I don't have that much time for Cormack, but it's completely unfair on him and the club to put someone like solskjaer in the hat and say "if you don't ask". We aim to have a wage bill no higher than 60% of turnover. OGS on his own would be above that. So no, it's not "you don't ask", it's simply a ridiculous suggestion that we shouldn't even be discussing. Knutsen is a different matter, he'd be at the high end of our budget. But we have to also accept that the club will know about him if we do and they'll likely have made an approach if there's any chance of getting him. We all know what type of person Cormack is, he'd love someone like that. It's just that there's a little more to it than simply asking a guy, there has to be a reciprocal desire to be anywhere near the spfl and that likely rules out a large number of foreign managers. We're making it out like the club are picking from a small pool of managers, rather than there being a small pool of managers who we can realistically appoint. Very few people are against foreign managers, we just don't aimlessly choose "foreign" as an attribute that counts for more than ability. It's similar to the folk saying that it needed to be someone "young and hungry" when we appointed Glass as if age has any bearing on managerial ability (it doesn't). The reason I don't put forward any foreign managers is because I simply don't know any, other than the obvious ones already mentioned. I can objectively measure someone like Jim Goodwin because I've watched his entire career and seen his improvement. I think that on our budget he'd be a big improvement on Glass. I think he's intelligent and determined. I don't need to be inspired by him, because I'm not likely to be inspired by any manager we can afford to appoint. If we appoint a foreign manager, I'd likely just be ignorant of them rather than inspired. I'd probably get the five minutes of excitement that you get with a new car or sofa, but I'd be brought back down to earth upon drawing with Livingston or some shite. But I'm fine with that. I'm also cognisant that the manager is only a part of the puzzle. We have to employ a manager that's in line with our playing budget. A hugely expensive manager with Ojo for company isn't going to fire us into third. We simply wouldn't get good value from our expensive manager. OGS would be like winning the lottery and spending it all on a Van Gogh for yer caravan.

Yes it fucking is. It's absolutely batshit fucking mental. It's devoid of any critical thinking. It's just shouting names at the moon. It couldn't be more ridiculous. It certainly isn't a fucking gamble, it's putting your stadium on number 37 at roulette. Therein lies the problem. You're now saying that you don't want the old crap etc, which is entirely valid. However, when you're placing them alongside the astronomically stupid suggestion of a manager on 20 times the salary of your previous one then quite clearly these options are going to look terrible. If we were being entirely honest then we'd probably admit that even the Knutsen lad will be looking beyond us at the moment. We might be able to offer him a strong salary, but probably not the associated funds to repeat his success, and that's ignoring the fact that he'll likely have set his sights higher than the spfl.

There's no need to suspect I'm right about being out of our budget. He was on ~£7.5M per year at Man Utd (more than 20 times Glass). Our entire turnover was ~£11M. A basic Google search fae Charlie twatface would have confirmed that unless he's willing to take a 95% pay cut (as he's likely still on gardening leave) then he's not relevant to anything ever. "Showing ambition" doesn't involve bankruptcy despite what the Huns might suggest. The fact that he once managed a small team is the equivalent of suggesting Davie Cormack might take a job in accounts at the evening express because he once had a paper round. And I know you were just humouring the initial suggestion.

Really good article in the guardian today that goes beyond the shouty accusations. Left wing loony mag

I've never been convinced of the "commands respect" thing. The evidence doesn't really bear it out, with some of the best players in the world being horseshit managers. John Collins being a prime example of someone extremely similar to Lambert. It's really something that has to be maintained too, it'll wear off pretty quickly when you're in and around the place daily and everyone can see that you're an uninspiring dullard, which is the vibe I've always got from Lambert (I could be completely wrong of course, it's just the way he comes across on telly). I certainly don't think he's unlikeable, he seems nice enough. Without question, he'd be an old firm panderer, far more than McInnes ever was - and probably even McGhee. He will literally see Scottish fitba through the lens of the scum, which is why I wouldn't want him. I'd definitely have haardon's foreigner suggestions over him.

I've been desperately trying to get a positive COVID test so that I don't have to put myself through this tonight, but unsuccessful! The last time Robson was involved it was one of the most naive performances I've seen from a professional team in years. It was "play out from the back" at all costs, despite the fact that the opposition were right there. Defenders were dodging in and out trying to find space to receive it from the keeper before sending it flying back to him either on his wrong foot or straight into his feet resulting in a rushed attempt to lob it to the fullback who was also under total pressure. That had most fans convinced that Joe Lewis was terrible with the ball at his feet (and for some reason, Woods wasn't), rather than just like every other keeper who receives the ball in a tight position. There was no option to play it long on occasion if the options weren't there, it was blindly following a mantra. However, I quite like Robson and I'm sure he'd change things up given time. I don't see him fixing our defensive issues in the short term though, so it'll likely need a couple of goals to win tonight.

Aye, thanks Charlie. Whilst I know you're only being tongue in cheek, it's this sort of shite fae wanker pundits like Nicholas that really grates. His only rationale being that it "shows ambition". An entirely meaningless, nebulous buzz phrase. It's a product of idiots like him for the last thirty years being allowed to spurt useless pish out of his arse without anyone ever asking him to explain himself in detail and with evidence to back up his moronic points. It's fucking toxic, and it doesn't just happen in football unfortunately, a quick glance at question time confirms it. How does solskjaer fit into Aberdeen's strategy? How does employing a man well outwith our budget effect the playing budget? What does "showing ambition" even mean, and how does it relate to OGS, or Aberdeen in general? What qualities does he bring that are relevant to a team in Aberdeen's position and budget? How does any of his Man utd experience relate to managing Aberdeen? I could think of another million questions that Nicholas hasn't bothered with when he spews forth his bullshit. The worrying thing is that people actually repeat his shite. They apply zero critical thinking and regurgitate this "show ambition" bollocks. It then leads to a situation where no manager we employ can possibly be good enough based on the ridiculous parameters laid out by Charlie fucking Nicholas, who has zero understanding or involvement in our game and hasn't for years. He should fuck off back to his wanker sky sports studio and shut his hoop. In my opinion, anyway.

That's a really great question.

Young no 77 for Dundee looks good. Definitely worth a look. Some goal.

So who do we have so far in the thread: Jim Goodwin Duncan Ferguson Jon Dahl Tomasson Kjetil Knutsen Jack Ross Lopez? Other random Spaniard Paul Lambert Stuart Petrie Neil Lennon Slavisa Jokanovic Jack Collinson etc I'm going for the Kuntsen like, he sounds ace. edit: to add in the rest of the names (I think)

I'm just surprised it took this long for someone to mention him. I'd rather we weren't the test case for him. Although a fight between him and Gallagher would be something I'd pay money to see.

It would probably result in heads exploding. Exactly the type of manager that certain folk in our support would love (a thick shouty sweary fucker), but also a judas cunt. What a dilemma. He's a character, that's for sure. I think the club should remain completely silent about the whole situation until 1st April then announce it for a laugh. Would be a good build up.

I don't think CVs come through the door as such, no, but we will get people applying for the job that we might not have thought of or considered. There might also be people who we might not want to have contacted whilst the manager was still here. I think the huns probably sounded out Van Bronkhorst, but it still took a few weeks and they did - apparently - interview other applicants. A more applicable one would be when they sacked the previous guy. They didn't contact McInnes until the job was available it seems, as he didn't end up going there. For good reason too. If we had sounded out Goodwin a couple of weeks back, for example, and then Glass had gone on to win the cup game and the subsequent two fixtures, what would have happened? A rival knowing that your manager is close to being punted, a quick leak to the press ahead of the next fixture that the dons were fishing. It's not a great position to be in. For someone outwith your own league, that's not such an issue of course. I'd like to think that the club will have a number of targets in mind with a preferred option like they would any other signing. To be honest, I'd even hope that we don't get our first choices because we're pushing the boundaries of what we think we can get for our money/profile. But we don't just need someone to coach the players and pick a team on a Saturday, that's the point. We can either have McInnes, who coached, picked the team, arranged the sports science team, led the recruitment process, signed players from rivals and selected the youth team coaches (and likely had a large say on where players went on loan), or we can have Glass who coached the players and picked the team (but was scandalously left to do the other stuff for the first half of his tenure). It could all be smoke and mirrors of course, but it absolutely shouldn't be, and I'm assuming that the club's strategy is for it not to be. The aim, I assume, is to build something better than we had when McInnes was here. We get the results on the pitch, plus we narrow down each area where he failed and we become the best we can be in those fields. The two glaring deficiencies being recruitment and youth pathway to the first team. Those areas were deficient because they were under the control of the manager, and because they were ripped up and rebuilt under each manager previously. The margins between success and failure for Aberdeen are paper thin, and if you can exert a bit of control and consistency in a large part of the business, you stand a much better chance. The alternative is to yo-yo around between managers like Hibs (until now, perhaps) and us previously and hope that we get the next Fergie. The market we shop in for both players and managers isn't going to get us that though, so we need the upper hand in the other disciplines to make Goodwin the best Goodwin he can possibly be.

Could be a couple of reasons. We clearly had Glass lined up, but it still took a few weeks to get it over the line. I'm guessing that if someone spectacularly good showed an interest, Cormack might change his mind. Things might come up at interview that weren't apparent during any sounding out process. Any approaches made to managers in current employment would necessarily be limited and of little substance: "would you be interested" type stuff. There's no certainty to it anyway. You certainly won't get CVs through the door until the vacancy arises. For my perspective, I'm concerned that we don't have the building blocks in place for any new manager, like we didn't for Glass. The club is trying to implement a strategy that transcends the manager and I personally think it's very important that is continued despite Glass' failure. The concern is that if we haven't got to grips with that strategy that we could either get a manager in without the required support (as we did Glass) resulting in failure, or that we get a manager in who is given too much responsibility (McInnes) because he sees areas that he can control, making it difficult to relieve him of that control and taking us back to where we were when McInnes left. In that situation, I see no harm in taking someone in until the end of the season, whether that be Robson or even a Jack Ross type looking for our employment (on our terms, obviously).

A decade since the Huns died (admin anyway, en route to death). Mental. Will go down as the biggest failure in Scottish football history. With another glorious helicopter Sunday looming, and teams getting skelped by 4 or 5 regularly, we're back to the early 2000s heyday. What an opportunity.

You've taken things a little too far here

I wouldn't be surprised, and it might be the correct decision, if we have a caretaker in until the end of the season. That's exactly what should have happened when McInnes left. We weren't in anyway ready for Glass to take over. Are we now? I'm not convinced, and we really don't want a knee jerk Cormack decision.

Which Celtic? Current Celtic, or Ronnie roar Celtic. What specific quality does being foreign bring to the role?

The Huns, yes, but Brown has been welcomed and McGhee would have been absolutely fine if he hadn't made those comments on day one.

Fuck that. Illiterate weegie fuck.

He's not that good a player that we should be concerned, and he's professional enough - hopefully - not to down tools (apart from that time he did under deila). It was a ridiculous situation to sign him as player coach/assistant anyway, this was always going to happen. A coaching role is fine if he's willing to accept that on the terms of the new manager. He's absolutely nowhere near ready for a management role.

Westhill? Or maybe Milne took them for one of his new builds when he stepped down.

So it seems the entire backroom staff are gone too? That must include Brown surely? What's the difference between him and Russell for example? We can't be taking in a new manager and insisting that Brown is his assistant. I thought the whole idea is that we took in a team of people who reported to the director of football? Thus Russell, apaloo etc all report to him, and their jobs aren't tied to the manager. Either that isn't the case, or the Gunn has decided that they're all pish. I don't suppose it matters, we all said that Glass was a bad idea. It's a shame for him, he shouldn't have had to cross the Atlantic for a job he wasn't ready for. The whole prawcess has been a fucking disaster. At least the new manager will have the director of football and recruitment team in place before he joins, which should have happened prior to Glass being anywhere near pittodrie. Cormack has a lot to answer for, he can't afford not to learn lessons quickly.